Question for hallmarks experts

Thank you A J for tagging me
I'm with you for the mix mash of the marks, and the serial number lacking
Not a genuine Van Cleef piece for me...
I can't understand either the Christie's documentation... perhaps they withdrawn the piece from the auction and forgot to update their collecting guide...

 

especially when it was consigned from one of their encherished customers of long and good standing...they may well have given him a cue to withdraw it himself. the guilloche work looks very well done and there's still the possibility of the old "ratline" from Besançon or Pontarlier on donkey-back to Geneva and from there directly to the US. US military were allowed to visit Geneva and other border towns in uniforms after 1945 for a while.

 

Just wow even if it is not Van Clef and Arpels. Wonderful find.

 

is the mark really LAO ? when I look with my lupe I wonder if it is not LA and then an unknown sign

 

LAO is NOT the London Assay Office mark at all and has nothing to do with them. The London Assay Office and the Goldsmiths Company use LAO as an example on their website of a maker's or sponsor's mark - nothing more, and a bit like simply using xxx or ???.

I suspect this page may have been misread: https://www.assayofficelondon.co.uk/faqs

The London assay indicator is the leopard's head.

 

how do you read that mark then ?

 

If you mean the one on that page, it's simply an exemplar of a format. They're using the letters LAO in place of the thousands of sponsor marks that are known, simply to demonstrate format. So, my friend who has her own silver smithing sponsor mark uses HFT, for example. She gets assay marks at London.

The London Assay Office are not a sponsor, nor can they be. They're neutral and impartial.

As to the original mark, it's not British. The 18K is one of the big clues to that.

 

so.....fake is a good possibility ...?

 

Given that the marks are all over the place, I'm inclined to say it's a nice thing that has had marks added. I strongly suspect it originally just had that "French" mark, if it had anything at all. As others have said, that LAO is badly struck. And it's also a nonsense mark. It and the 18K look added.